


An Early Christmas

by basketcasewrites



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Fluff, MJ knows about Peter being Spidey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 06:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17156690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basketcasewrites/pseuds/basketcasewrites
Summary: With Peter and MJ's plans differing for Christmas and the days surrounding, they decide to take ahold of whatever time they have and spend it together.





	An Early Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> for my tumblr secret santa. hope you enjoy ♡

Maybe she isn't made for Christmases. For harsh Winters and dying trees, for crisp air leaking through the cracks between window and windowframe waking her before she is ready to awaken.   
  
Combat boots scuffed at the front, MJ toes at a crack in the sidewalk. It runs the length of the concrete, splinters into nothing at the bend.   
  
Or maybe, she thinks absently. Maybe she isn't made to wait in the cold, to stand on a street corner like a vagrant without a purpose.

She rocks forward slightly, takes a look at the building's locked front door.

MJ lets out a shallow breath and watches as it dances in front of her face, as it curls and twirls in on itself before disappearing.

“So?” she began last night, her phone held solidly between her shoulder and the side of her head, her fingers idly turning the pages of an old book. “What's our plans for tomorrow?”

She could hear the shrug in Peter's voice. Could almost see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he spoke. “Dunno. Wanna come over and watch Christmas movies?”

“ _ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas _ ?” MJ had asked.

A gentle smile curved her lips upwards; she hoped Peter could hear it in the gentle slopes of her words, like she could hear it in his.

By the sound of his laugh— his giggle that seemed eternally and beautiful in limbo between childhood, between something only slowly aging— he could.

“There's more than one Christmas movie, y’know,” he had said, on the tail of a sigh.

A sharp wind whips her hair into a wild tangle, flying across her face and dancing with the wind.

Almost instinctively, MJ tucks the hair behind her ears, pulled her denim jacket tight around her slim frame.

“Dammit, Parker,” glancing at her wristwatch, MJ mutters, under her breath and with a shake of her head.

No texts from him, besides the one she had received half an hour ago:  _ may says don't go up :///something about a rat and pest control. _ No missed phonecalls either. Absolute, infuriating silence.

_ One more minute, _ MJ decides. One more minute and then she'll leave.

A patter of footsteps sounds from around the building's side. Rushing and frantic and quickly growing louder, growing nearer, growing more familiar.

It is all she can do to close her eyes, to exhale loudly through her nose and hope that the person running to her is not the person she thinks it is.

“Hey!” a voice, fighting against the wind to be heard, exclaims.

Even clinging onto each breath as he is, MJ recognizes that voice: Peter. Peter “The Most Loved Bane of Her Existence” Benjamin Parker.

The greeting he gives is a wild and reckless yell— as without direction as his body hurtling at full speed past MJ.

“Peter?” MJ makes to grab the flying hood of his sweatshirt. “ _ Peter!? _ ”

He throws a quick glance over his shoulder, one just long enough for MJ to meet gaze.

An elvish smile rucks up Peter's features into a plethora of wrinkles that frame the mischievous light in his deep brown eyes.

Grin widening, he reaches for MJ’s outstretched hand.

Closing his fingers around her wrist— firm enough that they are together, not so firm that MJ couldn't break away if she wanted to— Peter pulls MJ along behind him.

“Hey!” It is her turn to fight the wind, the burning in her chest; to yell.

Athletics are not her strong point, have never been. Keeping in step with Peter takes a less than comfortable stride, a pumping of her legs until she is sure they will stop completely.

“Hey—” he repeats.

“Who are we running from?”

“Flash.”

“Flash?” MJ asks flatly.  _ Of course _ .

They cut around another corner. Move from sparsely populated streets into a hub of moving, suffocating people thickening and converging around them.

In flat shoes or not, MJ towers over most people.

She searches the sea of dark-circled eyes, of hats drawn low and scarves drawn high, for a familiar following figure.

Nothing. No one but worker after dreary worker.

Tugging at Peter's arm, possibly less gentle than she could have, MJ pulls them to a jerking halt.

They skid to a rough stop. Fall against the brick front of an ancient building.

“I think we lost him,” she says, breathlessly. She drops Peter's hand without thought, drops her hands to rest on her knees and sucks in a large breath. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” A steady hand runs through the mess of curls he calls his hair. “Sorry… For…” Where he leaves the sentence hanging, Peter substitutes an ending for the ambiguous wave of a hand.

An unsculpted eyebrow raised. “Everything?” MJ offers.

“Yeah,” he repeats. Laughs. “Everything.”

Her hair hanging in sweat-dotted coils over her eyes, MJ looks up at Peter. Curiosity draws her brow into a creased line. “Are you going to tell me what this was about? Or just leave me in the dark?” she asks. The  _ as usual _ goes unsaid, ignored.

“Oh. You know,” Peter answers, his voice as light as his shrug, “Just Flash being Flash.”

“Huh— You're okay though, right?” Worry creases her brow, even when she tries to keep it from her face; edges her words even as she tries to keep it from her voice.

The corner of his mouth quirks up, a movement that is there and gone. “Yeah, MJ. I'm okay.”

He rests against the wall and— for a moment long enough that the minute hand changes its position thrice— they are two restful points in a city of constant uneasiness.

_ No Flash, _ MJ checks again. Just in case.

And, if it is really him who Peter was running from, MJ knows Flash well enough to know he would have given up awhile ago. Gone back to the sprawling mansion he calls home.

“C’mon,” Peter breaks their settled silence and pushes off from the wall. “I've gotta show you something.”

His hand around hers again.

A shared smile that pools warmth in her stomach.

“I just wanted to watch the Grinch destroy the bourgeoisie,” MJ mutters.

“You will.” Something shines in Peter's rich brown eyes, a glint that MJ can't explain. “C’mon,” he repeats, muted excitement lighting his face and chasing away any of its lingering shadows.

They grab ahold of each other. Fingers like roots seeking warmth, seeking light, twining around wrists.

MJ leans into the solid round of Peter's shoulder.

In this, sharing heat and laughter, they are home.

They are moving points. Anchored to each other and stepping as one from unfamiliar to familiar to unfamiliar streets, taking the long way back to their quiet neighbourhood.

“Wow,” MJ affects. Widening her eyes, she exaggeratedly takes in the low buildings— ones she has visited, has lived in, has helped renovate— that surround them. “Really, Peter, you shouldn't have gone through all this trouble.”

With a roll of his eyes, a shake of his head, Peter breathes out a sigh from the very well of his lungs. “You and Ned— The exact same—” he murmurs, pulling his mouth into a disinterested frown.

MJ nudges Peter with the bend of her elbow, lightly and barely enough to jostle him even if he wasn't Spider-Man.

On the tail of a laugh, she says, “Maybe don't let Ned hear that.”

All Peter gives is a silent shake of his head.

Interlocking their hands, their fingers wound tight together, he pulls himself and MJ across the road, as close to deserted as it would ever be. Halts them outside his apartment building,

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles, sheepish as he catches sight of the corner where he had grabbed MJ that morning.

He is warm through his light coat; warm under the splay of MJ’s hand on his shoulders. “You can't say we don't have adventures, right?” she says, only half jokingly.

“Remind me to take you swinging one day.”

The hours MJ has spent in this building are too many to count, and she knows it like the back of her hand.

The front gate squeaks when it opens; it needs badly to be oiled.

The pair of floorboards creak when they are stepped on; they need to be replaced. 

The railing peels of on hands and the college students on the first floor watch too much Turkish soap operas too loudly and the supervisor is trying her best.

She follows Peter in. And at once, it is comfortable. Like slipping on a pair of shoes worn to the shape of her feet, or a jacket made tailored for her form.

“Peter Benjamin Parker,” MJ says, taking the steps behind him, glancing only briefly over her shoulder when they pass his apartment, “I'll hold you to that promise.”

The door to the roof sticks. Heavy, it takes a well-grounded push to open.

The cold is the first thing MJ notices. It is a blast in full in her face, tickling at her nose. 

Her hands move quickly to pull her coat in closer, to tug her scarf tighter.

Peter rocks on the balls of his feet. Staring at MJ, seemingly not affected by the icy chill.

“So…” he leaves the word hanging. Takes an awkward step aside.

Behind Peter, spread across most of the roof, is the second thing that MJ notices.

“What—” MJ stumbles.

A canopy of deep red and gold trimmed scarves, their beadwork tinkling delicately in the wind, forms a shelter. It leans to the left, imperceptibly.

“Parker?” she begins again, taking in the spread of thick woolen blankets, the collection of plump cushions. “What is all this?”

Peter slips into place beside her, slips his hand into dip of her back. “Surprise,” he utters, his voice a gentle whisper. “And—” Peter pauses to pull his tablet from his backpack.

MJ’s laugh at the sight of the screen sounds out in waves, echoes loudly in the hush of the rooftops.

“Oh no.” A startling chuckle. “It's the Grinch! It's— It's my son!”

“Yeah.” He chuckles. “Yeah.”

Soft. The look they share is soft.

The kiss MJ places to Peter's cheek is even softer.

In this moment— this gentle, mundane moment— she loves him more than anything in the world.

“Wait…  _ Flash _ ?” MJ questions as she pulls away. “Was he really chasing after you earlier?”

“Yeah. The morning didn't exactly go according to plan,” Peter answers with a chuckle, a shrug.

Peter scratches at the nape of his neck, sheepish.

His smile so wide it reveals his pair of deep dimples, he takes MJ’s hand in his own and says, “Come on. Merry _early_ Christmas.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see how I procrastinate, shoot me some asks or just hang out, you can find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dykemilesmorales)


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